L 






WHAT OF THE HOUR? IS IT PEACE OR WAR? 



SPEECH 



OB" 



Wm. JAMES A. NORTO]^, 

OF OHIO, 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 1893. 



W^SFTI^STGTOISr. 
1898. 



4 









.IV n 



08526 



SPEECH 

OP 

HON. JAMES A. NORTON. 



The House being iu Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, 
and having under consideration the bill (R. B. 9008) malting appropriations 
for the service of the Post-Offlce Department for the fiscal year ending June 
30. 1899— 

Mr. NORTON of Ohio said: 

Mr. Chairman: It is not requisite that I should apologize to the 
House for not speaking directly upon the bill before us. The dis- 
cussion of the past two days has shown the broadest latitude 
given, and a wide range allowed to speeches upon any subject 
that might bear upon the best good of the American nation. I 
do feel, however, that I should briefly state why I shall address 
myself to the consideration of a bill that may come before this 
House at the conclusion of the discussion of the present bill. I 
refer to House bill No. 8618, presented by Mr. Boutelle of Maine, 
and which is for the relief of the sufferers by the destruction of 
the U. S. S. Maine in the harbor of Habana, Cuba. I fear that 
it may be impossible for me to be present upon this floor when 
the bill comes up for consideration, and I desire to place myself 
upon record as to my attitude upon the measure. 

Mr. Chairman, I am heart and soul in favor of the bill and 
any and every amendment that may perfect and liberalize it and 
help the survivors of the Maine left to mourn the unfortunate 
souls who have untimely gone to their God by the treachery of 
Spain. It is a bill introduced as an act of justice to the survivors, 
to the widows and orphans of unavenged Americans, victims of a 
dastardly, inhtiman crime committed in the harbor at Habana, 
from the waters of which the mingled blood of Cuban patriots and 
American martj^rs cries aloud for vengeance. When I sit upon 
this flooi- and look into the faces of the men upon the Republican 

3132 3 



side, I wonder they have been so long silent under the outrages 
and indignities that have been heaped upon this Government and 
upon its flag. 

The consideration of this measure revives memoi'ies that can 
not but inspire wonder, amazement, humiliation, sorrow, remorse, 
and anger in the heart of every patriotic member of this House. 
Memory goes back through all the years of our history and recalls 
acts and deeds that have emphasized Spanish doiible dealing, 
forming a scarlet thread of diabolism continuous through the cen- 
turies. On land and sea, on the soil of Spain itself, and in all her 
present and past colonies, her history is simply a record, a horrid 
record, of cruelties barbarous and inhuman, of treachery dark and 
damnable. Ever opposed to human rights, the constant foe of free- 
dom and liberty, she has ever been the buccaneer of the seas and 
an outlaw on the land. [Applause.] 

From the hour of the birth of this Republic to this day and to 
this hour Spain has commiserated the fact that a government for 
the people, by the people, and of the people existed. She has been 
sore at heart that this G-overnment became an established fact, 
because this nation of ours has stood as the embodiment of liberty, 
of humanity, of advancing civilization, of justice, freedom, and 
human right. In 1776, in Paris, at the time when the colonies 
were forming this glorious Union, severing their connection with 
the mother country, the ambassador of Charles III of Spain, Pedro 
Pablo Abarca y Boles, Count of Aranda, in speaking of the formal 
recognition of this republican Government, stated that he had 
done so with severe heartachings. 

It was a bitter necessity then, and ever since Spain has been 
eager for an opportunity to do us harm. In the dark days of our 
civil strife and fratricidal war, she hastened with utmost speed to 
do all in her power to break down our Union, to divide the bands 
which now, thank God, hold us iudissolubly together forever; 
and again, when peace had dawned upon our fair land and under 
her benignant smiles we were at one with each other and with all 
the world, then was committed an act that, until the destruction 
of the Maine, stood out as the deepest and most foul blot that ever 
fell on the pages of civilization and humanity; then American 
citizens were massacred, an American ship destroyed, and the 

3132 



American flag trampled under foot by this same brutal and semi- 
civilized Spanish people. 

In the quiet autumnal days of October, 1873, the steamer Vir- 
ginius, sailing under the American flag, commanded by an Ameri- 
can captain, and bearing American passengers and crew, while 
out upon the open waters of the blue sea was fired upon by the 
Spanish gunboat Tornado, and without a shot in return surren- 
dered and was taken a long four-days' voyage to the Spanish port 
of Santiago de Cuba, where, in direct violation of all international 
law, in contravention of solemn treaty compact, in despite and in 
the face of all the holy sacredness of the impulses of humanity, 
religion, justice, and civilization, the Spanish Government, by the 
act of its authorities represented by General Burriel, committed 
a crime "most brutal, barbarous, and an outrage upon the age," 
but a crime wholly in keeping with Spanish history, entirely con- 
sonant with the character of its Burriels, its Weylers, and its Blan- 
cos. It was the massacre of brave Captain Fry, of 12 American 
citizens, of 53 American seamen, all told, who were on board the 
Virginius when it was captured. It was a murder without cause, 
a slatighter without palliation or justification, save to satisfy the 
hyena-like craving and thirst for blood on the part of Spain; and 
this butchery was followed by the hellish act of scuttling the 
steamer by the infamous Spaniard, so that the boat sank on its 
homeward way. 

Mr. Chairman, the horrors and atrocities of Indian warfare, the 
utter terror of the ferocity of cannibal savages, is lifted to a plane 
of admiration and respect when compared with the conduct of 
Spain. I ask you to recall the course of our Government on that 
occasion. Grant then sat in the Presidential chair, the nation's 
Executive: Grant, the hero and patriot; Grant, God bless his 
name, and all honor to his courage and manhood, his bravery and 
Americanism, he was prompt to speak and act. [Applause.] 
Not only did he denounce the act as being one of " great atrocity 
and contrary to all the instincts of civilized humanity," but the 
machinery of the Government was swiftly called to action. Gen- 
eral Sickles, our representative at Madrid, was instructed to "pro- 
test in the name of this Government and of civilization and 

humanity against the act," and also to "demand the most ample 
siaj 



reparation for any wrong which may have been committed upon 
any of our citizens or npon our flag." Grant was prompt to act 
on the behest of his own patriotic impulses; his Secretary of State, 
Hamilton Fish, declared that "no government deserves to exist 
which can tolerate such crimes," and that sentiment is as true 
to-day. 

Fifty-three lives were taken, and more would have perished 
but for the interposition of Sir Lampton Lorraine, the noble Briton, 
who hurried to Santiago and demanded an immediate cessation of 
this butchery under threat of the bombardment of the town. 

For a while the clouds of war hung ominously over the horizon 
and the fires of patriotism blazed fierce and deep; but, Mr. Chair- 
man, we compromised. We accepted .$80,000 blood money in ex- 
piation and full satisfaction for those American citizens murdered, 
and the foul insult to our flag was condoned. That compromise 
will be a blot and stain upon our eschutcheon for a thousand years 
to come. Why was this done? The same reason prevailed then 
as now. Wall street and the money power directed and controlled 
the diplomatic proceedings that governed the Administration and 
permitted the shameful besmirching of our flag, as it controlled 
all other departments, and controls them to-day. 

Mr. Chairman, must we i-emain under the control and domination 
of money interests? Must we sacrifice our raanhood to corporate 
greed and insatiate avarice? We do not go as far as did our prede- 
cessors. We do not demand reparation for the wrongs done us 
in the slaughter of the scores of brave seamen whose mangled 
bodies we gathered from the waters of Habana Harbor; but we 
are proposing ourselves to grant the survivors of that dread 
calamity, the widows, orphans, and relatives of the slain, this pit- 
tance. 

Mr. Chairman, words fail me when I allow my mind to con- 
template the dark, damning horrors of this last awful and devilish 
deed, and my blood boils within me in righteous anger. The 
blood of the martyred dead cries for revenge. It is true that 
•' Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord," but the whole 
course of history has been a declaration of the fact that ever, in 
all ages, the Lord has used human agencies as the instrument of 
His divine retribution and vengeance, and, sir, I am ready, yes, I 

3132 



believe we are all ready, to be guided by the hand of Deity in 
the execution of His mandates of justice and punishment. [Ap- 
plause.] 

There can be no plea offered for the preservation of Spain. Its 
history is replete with inhuman deeds, its banner is stained and 
tarnished with dishonor, its record is black with diabolic deeds of 
cruelty, extending through a long-continued reign of barbaric 
egotism, ignorant superstition, and the pride of savagery, and it 
should be called to halt. It has ' ' no right to exist. " That man or 
party that will stand supinely by and witness a murder without 
an attempt to interfere or punish is a coward and a criminal. 

Mr. Chairman, a few days ago we performed an act upon the 
floor of this House that was beyond parallel in the history of this 
Government. We voted to the President an emergency fund of 
$50,000,000. I need not enumerate the constitutional prerogatives 
of this body; but every member on this floor knows that if the 
emergency of war was not upon us, then we had no right to make 
this appropriation. If we were not threatened by a war neces- 
sity, then it was a wrong against the American people to surren- 
der our right. If that emergency did not exist, the President or 
his counselors had no right to bring such a bill before this body. 

Mr. Chairman, we believed it did exist, and with unanimous 
voice and vote granted him the money, and with it full confidence. 
And now let the President give back to this House his confidence 
in return for that we have reposed in him without question, with- 
out even a word of disparagement or criticism. [Applause.] No 
man, upon this side of the House at least, has any knowledge of 
the dangers that threaten our honor and the nation's peace, except 
such as he gleans from the public press and his daily observation. 
I look across to the other side and say to my honorable colleague 
from Ohio [Mr. Grosvenor] that I grasp his hand and give him 
my voice and vote for every patriotic act and move he may make. 
He denies upon this floor to-day that he speaks for anyone but 
himself, but I say that it is commonly understood throughout the 
land by the public and among the members of this House that he 
has the ear of the President, that he speaks the voice of the Presi- 
dent, that he is in the counsels of the President; and yet none of 

the acts that may be guiding our nation, destroying its life, or 
3133 



saving its honor ever comes across tlie aisle that divides ns. 
[Applause.] 

I say to that side of the House that we are here, and ready to 
go forward step by step to the verge of war, and into war, if need 
be, in maintenance of national honor. We are ready to devote 
our treasure, our blood, and our bodies in a united front in behalf 
of our country's defense, but not one penny, not one drop of 
blood, for tribute [Applause.] This bill is just: but, sir, the 
necessity for it might have been prevented had our Executive 
been surrounded by wise counselors and patriotic advisers. What 
necessity was there for sending the Maine to Habana? What was 
its mission to that pestilential harbor? What excuse is given for 
its fatal voyage to the spot where it was moored over the mine of 
death? 

The only reason that has ever come from the lips of the Admin- 
istration or from the lips of any man I have heard was that it waa 
the act of a friendly nation to another nation equally friendly; 
that it went there to pay our respects to the Spahish Grovernment. 
That is why on that dark and fatal night the good steamer Maine 
went down in the friendly waters of the Spanish harbor. Mr. 
Chairman, how utterly imbecile, how impudent and untruthful, 
is that excuse for sending the pride of our Navy into the harbor 
of Habana. No foot of lajid, no drop of water, over which the pi- 
ratical flag of Spain floats, a symbol of possession, has ever been for 
one hour friendly to the American Government. [Applause.] 

What had Spain done to merit this high honor? Nothing; but, 
on the contrary, had done that continuously that should have sent 
the Maine to Cuba's shores on an entirely different errand. We 
should have sent her there, not alone, but accompanied by a fleet, 
on a mission of protection to American citizens and American prop- 
erty and the upholding of the dignity and honor of the American 
flag. She should have gone there months ago, with belching can- 
non proclaiming in thunder tones her mission to batter down 
prison doors to liberate American citizens. She should have car- 
ried "boys in blue" to strike down the cordon of Spanish soldiery 
who are butchering, violating, and starving helpless American 
women and children, confined with the reconcentrados, and set 

them free in the name of justice, right, liberty, and freedom, 
3133 



9 

Aye, I would go further and say she should have gone there in the 
name of outraged civilization and caused peace and prosperity to 
once more dwell in the Q-em of the Antilles, and Cuba free to take 
its place in the sisterhood of American Republics. [Applause.] 

Comment has been made in regard to the unanimity of the ac- 
tion of this House in voting this other appropriation. I say, sir, 
and I say it boldly, and without fear of successful contradiction, 
that this side of the House has not only been ready in the last 
year to give unanimous support to any measure of the kind, but 
has begged, pleaded, and implored for an opportunity to show 
its readiness to stand for the defense of the flag and for the relief 
of down stricken, suffering, and bleeding Cuba, without waiting 
for this hideous act of treachery on the part of Spain. [Ap- 
plause.] 

We want the same unanimity upon this floor there is through- 
out the Union, and demand that you stretch your hand across 
this aisle, and then we will march hand in hand in front of 
the Speaker's chair and demand the rights guaranteed to Ameri- 
can people, and secure what we ought to have — the right of free 
speech, the right to search into the dangers that now threaten our 
Government in this hour, and that we may know and ask of the 
President, "What of the hour? Is it peace or war? " [Applause.] 

We have been admonished to wait; we have been told this "in- 
cident " may have been an "accident."' Accident? Never! No 
person with an atom of sense believes in the accident theory. If 
it was an accident, then the whole theory of naval architecture is 
wrong and every naval power is criminally guilty in permitting 
the construction of the present style of war ships, and every man 
on board a gunboat is sent to a possible hideous doom. It was no 
accident. I challenge the history of naval records to produce an 
incident or occasion to equal it, a case where from an internal 
explosion results similar to the Maine conditions were found. 
This disaster came from without. With measured words I say, 
this loss of the Maine and the death of many of her crew was of 
the deliberate planning and execution of hellish and Spanish vil- 
lainy. [Applause.] 

Mr. Chairman. I love and honor the President of these United 

States. He is a son of Ohio, and I know, left to himself, he would 
3132 



10 

exercise his judgment, his honesty, and his patriotism as perhaps 
no other man in my country. 

But, surrounded as he is by a trocha of a money power abovit 
him that would require the strength and courage of a god to sur- 
moimt, he must take the position of Grant and Fish, and see 
humiliation and disgrace perch upon our banner unless the House 
and the Senate, the representatives of the American people, shall 
drive from his counsels the sordid knaves who prefer pelf to 
national honor. 

I believe it has been impossible for this Executive to carry out 
the dictates of his own better judgment, the impulses of his patri- 
otism, and the desires of his inherent honesty. If we to-day are 
in danger of being embroiled in war with Spain, that danger arises 
solely and only because of the sluggishness of our movements, the 
dilatoriness of our actions, and the apparent indifference of the 
last and the present Administration to the encroachments upon 
the rights of this Government and its honor and the course pur- 
sued in truckling to the money power. 

Mr. Chairman, from the press and from intercourse with mem- 
bers on this floor, we hear from day to day that this House is to 
adjourn within a month. This House ought not to adjourn, 
though it should remain in session until the snows shall come and 
go and spring shall come again, until the President of the United 
States shall advise this nation through this body of the situation 
of affairs between this Government and Spain; and, speaking for 
myself, I wish it might not adjourn until it has recognized the 
absolute independence of Cuba. [Applause.] 

I give all due credit to the Administration for its " calmness" 
and its " wise course of diplomacy" preventing war. But what 
can be said of an Administration that confessedly has spent 
millions in patrolling our coasts, acting as police and spies for 
Spanish pirates; that has waited until hundreds of thousands of 
human beings have been starved to death under the inhuman 
policy of the Spanish Government; waited while Spain has plun- 
dered and I'obbed our own people under guise of war necessity, 
and, yet denying that war existed in Cuba, waited until the rep- 
resentative of Spain, here in our nation's capital, insulted our 
President and then stole away from our shores to return to 

3132 



11 

his own land, there to be feted and praised by his fellow-country- 
men while he boasts and glories in his shame; wait and stand idly 
by while our brave Lee is menaced by violence and death? No;» 
after all this, it seems to me that our action has been tardy. It 
should have been taken long ago. Then such a bill as this might 
not have been presented. 

It is a fact our action has been tardy. Our Government, un- 
der all its Administrations, has been negligent of duty. There 
has not been an hour in twenty years when we ought not to have 
been prepared for such an emergency as to-day confronts us, an 
emergency coupled with conditions we might have expected, 
knowing as we have the constant if not the consistent course of 
Spain toward us. We have been remiss in our neglect of the 
Navy. It has not been kept equipped abreast with the needs and 
demands and with the inventive genius of the age. While we 
have a Navy that we may justly be proud of, it should be doubled 
in its number and strength. 

The officers of our Navy lead the world in ability, courage, and 
manly integrity, while the personal bravery of the marines is 
without parallel: yet we have not stood by them as they deserve, 
and have for years been niggard in our care for them and their 
needs. Our coast defenses have been slighted, allowed to fall be- 
low standard and sink into almost ruins. I hope that this may 
mark the opening of a new era in our treatment of our only hope 
in case of danger from foreign assail. 

Mr. Chairman, I listened with mingled feelings of admiration 
and wonder to the words of the gentlemen on the other side of 
this Chamber when they thanked God that they had lived to see 
the unification of all the people North and South. I am glad to 
hail this conversion, even if it has come late in life, that the scales 
have fallen from their eyes, and, prejudice removed, they see 
clearly, and not "men as trees, walking." I, too, thank God that 
I have lived to see the day when they would admit such convic- 
tion and conversion, and I sincerely trust I may never behold 
them in a backslidden condition. [Laughter.] But, Mr. Chair- 
man, this harmony, this common love of country, is no new thing. 
Grant saw the dawn of unification the hour that Lee surrendered. 

Lincoln beheld it and was glad when he spoke those noble words, 
3133 



12 

"With malice towards none, with charity for all," and every 
American soldier North knew of its fulfillment when the South 
^laid down its arms and each went home, bearing no hatred, but 
filled with admiration and respect for the sturdy bravery of a 
"foeman worthy of his steel." Then, sir, were we once more a 
united people, one common brotherhood joined in fellowship 
under the old flag, and the differences that have been charged to 
exist between North and South have only existed in manufac- 
tured incidents and in distorted and perverted visions of a dis- 
ordered, chaotic imagination. [Applause.] 

I hope this bill will pass with the same unanimity as did that 
other bill, and I. too, am proud that there is no North, no South, 
no East, no West. I would be prouder still if the patriotic spirit 
of the American people could have full and free range, if for long 
months it had not been held in check and borne down by a selfish, 
unpatriotic, and un-American money power that has kept our 
flag below half-mast and presented only a cowardly front to an 
arrogant and insulting nation. I am glad, Mr. Chairman, that 
the opportunity has come to this House to take some action look- 
ing toward the amelioration of the condition of the survivors of 
the Maine. We can not bind up the wounds of affection, the 
broken hearts of the wives, mothers, and orphans of these slaugh- 
tered seamen, but we may provide something at least for their 
necessities. 

I am glad that we have done something at last; but I have seen 
with deep humiliation this House, this American Congress, more 
tardy than the American people. I regret that our steps have been 
laggard, while the tread of the feet of the American people haa 
been fleet and swift to come to the fore. In every State, in almost 
every hamlet, the people have flocked with quick haste to give 
expression in regard to the disastrous destruction of the Maine, 
and not only express sympathy for the suffering ones, but giving 
vent to their indignation at what they believe, what I believe, and 
what you believe to have been caused by the treachery of Spain. 
[Applause.] 

I know there are a few men on this floor who will condemn my 

utterances and admonish me to prudence, calmness, and docility. 

I despise their prudence that permits a continuous insult to my 
3132 



13 

country. I hate a calmness that woiikl have us bide in waiting 
until the dangers and horrors of war are at our door; that permits 
the dragging of our flag through the mire of disgrace and insult; 
and above all I hate and despise a calmness and docility that 
springs only from the breast of sordid greed and avarice, that fears 
not for American honor, American pride, and American patriot- 
ism, but fears only the loss of ill-gotten gains coined out of the 
blood and misery of a people who are struggling for liberty, hop- 
ing for the justice of humanity and humanity's God. [Applause. ] 

Mr. Chairman, I am not necessarily an advocate of war; but if 
war be a necessity, I welcome war. I do not believe that if we deal 
honorably and bravely we will bring upon us the horrors and dan- 
gers, or even the glories of war. There is a higher glory, a more 
brilliant honor than war can bring, and unto us will that meed be 
accorded if we shall act toward struggling Cuba as patriotism in- 
spires. 

I believe that in the providence of God, it was His purpose that 
on this American continent the light of liberty should be upheld, 
as the beacon from which should stream forth the glorious rays 
of fraternal friendship and advancing, enlightened civilization 
to the ends of the world. [Applause. ] I believe that there should 
fly over every foot of soil on this Western hemisphere the flag of 
a Republic, that this country should stand as the realization of 
His purpose in building up a heritage, erected on the grand foun- 
dation principle, the chief corner stone of American institutions, 
the rights of the people, as enunciated in the language of the Dec- 
laration of Independence. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; 
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that 
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure 
these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just 
powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any farm of govern- 
ment becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter 
or to abolish it. and to institiite new government, laying its foundation on 
such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall 
seein most likely to effect their safety and happiness. 

And that when this declaration declares that governments 

derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, it 

asserts and declares the immutable and eternal truth of God. 

[Applause.] 

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14 

If there shall go out across the blue waters of the sea the glad 
message to Cuba that her heroic struggles and sacrifices have 
awakened our sympathy and aroused our love of justice and lib- 
erty, that we recognize her right to independence, then the ebbing 
spark of hope will rekindle and revive in despairing hearts, a glad 
triumphant shout will echo and reecho from center to circumfer- 
ence of the isle, the patriotic troops, with resistless energy, will 
sweep every foe from her shores; every lover of freedom, liberty, 
justice, and right will join in exultant paeans of praise, and Cuba 

shall be free. [Applause.] / 

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